Walsall manager Jon Whitney believes the club will benefit in pre-season from the maintenance training sessions that started last week at the club’s Essington training ground.

The sessions were mandatory for the club’s under-23s - although Liam Kinsella missed the first session as he returned from a training camp with the Republic of Ireland’s U21 squad - with first-team players also invited to train if they wanted to keep their fitness up over the summer.

With the squad’s return to pre-season training still a month or so away, Whitney believes getting the young lads in will help maintain those fitness levels which will be to everyone’s advantage come the summer slog.

“It was mandatory for the U23s but also any player can come - so the older players are more than welcome to come in as well,” Whitney said of the sessions over the summer.

“After two weeks, you get a de-training effect so all we need to do is do some two-day blocks over the summer which will keep us maintained.

“When we come back for pre-season, then we can get straight into some ball work and hit the ground running.

“There were about 19 or 20 players in with myself, Neil Cutler, John Ward and Ian Sharps.

“Rev (Marc Czuczman, physio) is in so we’ll do a little bit of gym work - Mark Bradley will put them through their paces and I’ll take them outside with the coaches.”